Posted by llrrrpp on May 24, 2006, at 22:33:08
In reply to maybe the hardest talking I've ever done, posted by llrrrpp on May 24, 2006, at 17:16:57
Okay,
I had dinner with a good friend. She basically strong-armed me into going to dinner with her (that's what friends are for, right?). And I told her what went on in the session with T, and she agrees with you guys. (She has experience with multiple T's and pdocs) There is something cold about how T decided to handle my cry for help.But there are a lot of things that I'm trying to figure out about what happened today. First of all, let's say I had a panic attack in the first 5 minutes of the session. my mouth was completely dry, and my heart was pounding so hard I thought I would die. And T is asking me: what am I afraid of. And I said "being here" "going to the hospital" but that's not the truth. The truth is that I'm scared of HIM! mistake number one.
So, I think both T and I agreed that my biggie problem is that I supress feelings. It's a pretty powerful habit. At first, limited to my interactions with a few people (like, um my family?) But then lately, I deny and supress feelings related to just about everything. There is SO much truth to this, it's frightening. I had a rehearsal tonight (I'm a musician) and I was trying to 'feel' the music, instead of thinking my way through it. Oh my GOD. I have gotten so analytical that I have forgotten what MUSIC is. I was able to turn on the feelings for a few minutes at a time, but they were too intense. I felt really uncomfortable. I actually left rehearsal an hour early, because I felt physically ill. If I can't FEEL when I play music (which should be a very safe and natural circumstance to let raw emotions take a prominant role, right?) then I realized that it's going to be a long struggle to learn how to FEEL and how to manage those feelings as I go through other events in my life, particularly my personal face-to-face interactions. I rarely tell people how I feel, really, because I rarely tell myself how I feel. Does that make any sense?
Mistake number 2: I ask T point-blank about who I should call in a crisis. Call your husband. Call your friend. mumbling something about some suicide crisis line... I SHOULD HAVE TOLD T how that made me feel. I was kind of disappointed, but I didn't realize how much it hurt me until I was out of the session.
I know that T can't always be "on". He is pretty insightful and helps me make sense of a lot of this. I think my goal with him is to use our sessions as an opportunity for me to practice experiencing feelings (like when he pisses me off, or confuses me, or hurts me) and then reporting them accurately. Not waiting until hours/days/years later to try to put the pieces together.
So, one of his strengths is that he has figured out a lot of this stuff given fragmented and contradictory information given by a panicked and unfeeling client (patient?)
BUT, I think he's kind of like me. He's more analytical and less "touchy-feely". He uses feelings in order to talk about causes and effects, but maybe what I need help with is understanding the feelings themselves, not their sources, but their manifestations (their phenomenology wink wink).
I'm kind of not so self-confident right now. I'm too scared to ask him whether he "cares" if I get better. I know he wants me to get better, but that's different. It's analytical and practical to want me to get better. It's more emotional and feeling-y to care for me to get better.
Well, all in all, a very interesting day. I think maybe I'm stronger than I was before. I realized that there's no one to pick up the pieces. I better not break myself, huh?
poster:llrrrpp
thread:647965
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060517/msgs/648172.html